(+Video) “Jenin Jenin” and What Really Happened

idfblog.com..
15 October '12..

Dr. David Zangen is a 50-year-old Pediatric Endocrinology specialist at the Hadasa Ein-Karem hospital in Jerusalem. He finished his reserve service five years ago, but still volunteers to serve during emergencies. In 2002, he was called in to take part in Operation Defensive Shield in the Jenin Refugee Camp and was stationed with the Armored Corps 5th Brigade. In that time, he was faced with life-and-death decisions concerning the lives of his friends. Today, he agreed to share his experience from the operation — and how he stood up against the lies told about it.

Where did you serve during Operation Defensive Shield?

I was called to join my reserves brigade during the operation in the Jenin Refugee Camp, which is where the deadliest terror attacks came from.

The government decided to start Operation Defensive Shield due to the incessant suicide bombings in Israel. Jenin was home to the most dangerous terrorists. They knew about the operation and booby-trapped the area of the camp before we arrived. We also knew about their readiness and were prepared for a difficult battle.

How was the atmosphere in Israel prior to the Operation? What was the feeling among the fighting soldiers?

Most of the forces that fought with us were from reserve battalions. That means most of them were called up from home; they weren’t active duty. We were called up during Passover, which was difficult, because we all wanted to spend the holiday with our families. But of course we all reported for duty. There was a feeling among all of us that the terror must be stopped.

The atmosphere is Israel was very stressful. People were scared. It was hard to live in Israel at the time — you couldn’t visit a coffee shop or ride the bus because of the chance of being killed by a suicide bomber.

Muqata - Shame on the New Israel Fund

Jameel
The Muqata
27 July '11

http://muqata.blogspot.com/2011/07/shame-on-new-israel-fund.html

Today, Israel's Supreme Court rejected the appeal of IDF soldiers against the film, "Jenin, Jenin." The court did rule that it film was full of lies, it technically didn't slander 5 specific IDF soldiers who brought the lawsuit against the film's director.

Shortly after the film's release, it was banned by the Israeli Film Board on the grounds that it only showed one side of the story and that it was slanderous.

The five soldiers' lawsuit included 13 incidents it describes as libel, including a section of the film that had been edited to give the impression that a bulldozer had run over a group of Palestinians lying on the ground.

In dismissing the suit, the judges ruled that even though Bakri's film was "full of things that are not true" and even though it was hurtful to the feelings of the five soldiers, there was no provision under the law for them to bring a civil claim against Bakri because the film made reference to the IDF's operations in Jenin as a whole and not to any specific soldier.

"Attributing acts such as those described in the film to IDF soldiers are some of the worst accusations that can be thrown at someone. It puts them on a par with the very worst war criminals and the very worst murderers. The allegations in the film are very severe and cannot be underestimated," wrote Judges Miriam Naor, Yitzhak Amit and Yoram Danziger.

"In the final analysis, it is my belief that a reasonable person viewing the film would not recognize any slander against any single soldier belonging to the group of soldiers fighting in Jenin." (JPost)

Who cheers for director Bakri -- Palestinians? Neo Nazis? Terrorists?

Guess again!

The folks running the "New Israel" Fund refer to Bakri, the film's director as "an esteemed actor and director" and they even gleefully sponsored a screening in New York of his latest anti-Israel film. Proudly informing the world of their support for Bakri, the New Israel Fund put this information on their own website! (You don't have to look very hard to find it).

If you want to fully understand what the New Israel Fund is all about, you just need to understand that they support some of Israel's worst enemies, who have been unmasked by Israel's own Supreme Court.

The New Israel Fund is proudly supporting a director whose film is "full of things that are not true" [LIES], a film that is hurtful to IDF soldiers, [SLANDER] and "Attributing acts such as those described in the film to IDF soldiers are some of the worst accusations that can be thrown at someone. It puts them on a par with the very worst war criminals and the very worst murderers. The allegations in the film are very severe and cannot be underestimated." [SEVERELY ATTACKING THE IDF].

Freedom of Speech is crucial to Israel's democracy.

Why the New Israel Fund advocates free speech, yet associates itself with slanderous liars like Muhammad Bakri, makes you wonder what sort of "New Palestine Israel" they are trying to fund.

Previous Muqata posts on NIF here:

Unmasking the New Israel Fund.
New Israel Fund supports Anti Israel week
The Hizbollah Spy and the New Israel Fund

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Accepting Arab slander

Yoaz Hendel
Israel Opinion/Ynet
12 March '11

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041127,00.html

Op-ed: In name of freedom of expression, Israel fails to punish creator of Arab ‘documentary’

The word “lie” in Arabic is associated with a prevalent way of life in the Middle East. As not to be confused here, it’s important to clarify that we are not dealing with minor untruths, but rather, provocative, blatant and insistent lies.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court held a hearing on the lie produced by Mohammed Bakri in the film Jenin, Jenin. One of the prominent scenes in the movie shows IDF soldiers forcing Palestinian detainees to lie down on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs; a tank approaches, and a frightened voice in the backdrop announces that the tank is running over the people.

The scene ends with bodies on a stretcher. Later on we are treated to interviews with residents who describe soldiers shooting the elderly, women and babies. The story is accompanied with music and images of the ruins.

Bakri explains that these are his artistic tendencies – intermixing scenes, voices and images and editing one-sidedly; lying in order to “tell” the story of what happened in IDF Operation Defensive Shield.

(See Road to Jenin, an eye opening film by an independent French film maker Pierre Rehov, which was meant to both counter the claims of a massacre there, expose the Israeli side and rebut the propaganda piece "Jenin Jenin" by Mohammad Bakri)

Had this been a case of fulfilling his personal fantasy – Jews in the role of Nazis and Palestinians in the role of sacrificial lambs –it would have been annoying and prompt a different kind of discussion. However, Bakri seemingly produced a documentary. Under the guise of art and with a budget that came from unclear sources he sinned, lied, and mostly slandered everyone who fought and was killed in Jenin.

Legal system stuttering

A libel suit was a called-for step. With the support of the bereaved families, the soldiers turned to the court, which ruled that Bakri lied and did not act in good faith. However, this wasn’t enough. In the name of freedom of expression and fears of entanglement, the judges refrained from punishing the film’s producer and the affair dragged on through appeals.

One could have expected theState of Israel, which sent its troops to fight in Jenin, to offer automatic support in battling the slanderer. However, that is not the case. For eight years now, this battle is being managed by citizens who are financing from their own money the fight against the stain on their reputation during their reserve service.

The State only joined the lawsuit from the sidelines, the legal system is stuttering, and if this isn’t enough, some people around here are displaying lovely solidarity with Bakri and his artistic lies; a long list of TV producers, actors, theaters, and of course Arab Knesset members who miss no opportunity to do the wrong thing for their constituents.

Yet Bakri was right about one thing this week. We are all “drooling dogs.” In the name of freedom of expression we nurture de-legitimization and lies.

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Preparing the ground for murder

Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
14 January '10

Whoopty do - the ostensibly uplifting news is that our attorney-general has at long last made a pro forma move against a libel of particularly monstrous ramifications. Talk about too little too late! It took him a long time, and Menahem Mazuz has managed the grudging gesture literally only days before his six-year term ends.

It was by way of a consolation prize that he decided to support an appeal to the Supreme Court by combat soldiers and bereaved families against Israeli-Arab director Muhammad Bakri for his slanderous 2002 film Jenin, Jenin. Mazuz's announced intention to attend the hearing was meant to sweeten the pill of his refusal to indict Bakri for libel, as the Central Region District Court suggested he should in 2008.

For those who don't recall, here's a brief recap: Directly after the 2002 Pessah Seder carnage at Netanya's Park Hotel, the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield, which spawned whopping falsehoods about war crimes by soldiers in Jenin. Bakri's pseudo-documentary was instrumental in propagating these falsehoods. After our ever-solicitous Supreme Court unanimously permitted local cinematheque screenings of Bakri's creation in 2003, soldiers and families of fallen fighters sued him for libel. The district court accepted thatJenin, Jenin was defamatory, but argued that the state, not individuals, should take legal action. Mazuz refuses to prosecute on behalf of the state, though he has magnanimously offered to side with the plaintiffs in their appeal against the lower court ruling.

The upshot is that the aggrieved soldiers, who put their lives on the line for us all - along with the kin of those soldiers who indeed gave their lives in Jenin - are turned into veritable footballs. The district judge and Mazuz agree that Jenin, Jenin is nothing but a smear job. Yet while the former insists this isn't a matter of private grievances, the latter maintains it can only be litigated as a private complaint.

Related Video: Road to Jenin

(Read full article)
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The Road to Jenin

An eye opening film by an independent French film maker Pierre Rehov, which was meant to both counter the claims of a massacre there, expose the Israeli side and rebut the propaganda piece "Jenin Jenin" by Mohammad Bakri (Israeli born arab, btw).

Directed and produced by Pierre Rehov -
Co-Produced by Michael Grynszpan
English, Arabic, Hebrew and French with English subtitles
52 minutes

(abstracts from a CAMERA review)

The Road to Jenin by French director Pierre Rehov, depicts a moral Israeli army fighting a just war against armed Palestinians in a hotbed of terrorism which spawned more than half the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Among the terrorists from Jenin, for instance, was the killer who took 29 lives in the Passover bombing of the Park Hotel days before.

Israel initially took the dangerous step of sending infantry to fight house-to-house so as to minimize civilian casualties. After nearly two dozen of their own men were lost to ambushes, Palestinian snipers, and booby-trapped houses, Israel brought in bulldozers for use in a limited area, a step which led to the surrender of the Palestinian fighters. (No air attacks were involved.) Can these disparate accounts both in terms of the facts of the specific incidents they describe, as well the bigger pictures they represent be reconciled ?

Among the most disputed and misrepresented facts about the fighting in Jenin was the number of Palestinians killed and the extent of the destruction. Initially, Palestinian officials claimed that hundreds were killed in the "Jenin massacre."

For full review click here

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